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Grammar are the rules that govern how words, phrases and clauses are formed and used in a particular language, and is also the field of linguistics that studies these rules. All natural human languages have grammar, and grammar is considered to be unique to and a defining characteristic of human language. Within linguistics a number of different theories of grammar exist, each with their specific formal definitions of grammar. Some such theories consider the rules of grammar to be universal, and an innate part of human biology. Other, functional, theories consider grammar to be socially constructed conventions that emerge naturally through human communication and interaction.

In common parlance, grammar is often used to refer to the orthographic and stylistic rules typically taught in educational settings, but in linguistic terms such rules is not grammar but merely social conventions about what kinds of language use is considered appropriate in specific contexts. Linguists typically distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive approaches to grammar, the first of which merely describes the rules of a particular linguistic variety, whereas the latter prescribes the use of a particular set of grammatical conventions within a social domain (for example academics).

Use of the term

The term grammar is often used by non-linguists with a very broad meaning. As Jeremy Butterfield puts it, "Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to." However, linguists use it in a much more specific sense. Speakers of a language have in their heads a set of rules for using that language. This is a grammar, and the vast majority of the information in it is acquired—at least in the case of one's native language—not by conscious study or instruction, but by observing other speakers; much of this work is done during infancy. Learning a language later in life usually involves a greater degree of explicit instruction.

The term "grammar" can also be used to describe the rules that govern the linguistic behaviour of a group of speakers. The term "English grammar", therefore, may have several meanings. It may refer to the whole of English grammar—that is, to the grammars of all the speakers of the language—in which case, the term encompasses a great deal of variation. Alternatively, it may refer only to what is common to the grammars of all, or of the vast majority of English speakers (such as subject–verb–object word order in simple declarative sentences). Or it may refer to the rules of a particular, relatively well-defined variety of English (such as Standard English).

"An English grammar" is a specific description, study or analysis of such rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar." A fully explicit grammar that exhaustively describes the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar. This kind of linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription, an attempt to discourage or suppress some grammatical constructions, while promoting others. For example, preposition stranding occurs widely in Germanic languages and has a long history in English. John Dryden, however, objected to it (without explanation), leading other English speakers to avoid the construction and discourage its use.

Etymology

Further information: Grapheme

The word grammar is derived from Greek γραμματικὴ τέχνη (grammatikē technē), which means "art of letters", from γράμμα (gramma), "letter", itself from γράφειν (graphein), "to draw, to write".

History

Further information: History of linguistics

The first systematic grammars originated in Iron Age India, with Yaska (6th century BC), Pāṇini (4th century BC) and his commentators Pingala (c. 200 BC), Katyayana, and Patanjali (2nd century BC). In the West, grammar emerged as a discipline in Hellenism from the 3rd century BC forward with authors like Rhyanus and Aristarchus of Samothrace, the oldest extant work being the Art of Grammar (Τέχνη Γραμματική), attributed to Dionysius Thrax (c. 100 BC). Latin grammar developed by following Greek models from the 1st century BC, due to the work of authors such as Orbilius Pupillus, Remmius Palaemon, Marcus Valerius Probus, Verrius Flaccus, and Aemilius Asper.

Tolkāppiyam is the earliest Tamil grammar; it has been dated variously between 3rd century BC and 3rd century CE.

A grammar of Irish originated in the 7th century with the Auraicept na n-Éces.

Arabic grammar emerged with Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali from the 7th century who in-turn was taught the discipline by Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth historical caliph of Islam and first Imam for Shi'i Muslims.

The first treatises on Hebrew grammar appeared in the High Middle Ages, in the context of Mishnah (exegesis of the Hebrew Bible). The Karaite tradition originated in Abbasid Baghdad. The Diqduq (10th century) is one of the earliest grammatical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. Ibn Barun in the 12th century compares the Hebrew language with Arabic in the Islamic grammatical tradition.

Belonging to the trivium of the seven liberal arts, grammar was taught as a core discipline throughout the Middle Ages, following the influence of authors from Late Antiquity, such as Priscian. Treatment of vernaculars began gradually during the High Middle Ages, with isolated works such as the First Grammatical Treatise, but became influential only in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In 1486, Antonio de Nebrija published Las introduciones Latinas contrapuesto el romance al Latin, and the first Spanish grammar, Gramática de la lengua castellana, in 1492. During the 16th-century Italian Renaissance, the Questione della lingua was the discussion on the status and ideal form of the Italian language, initiated by Dante's de vulgari eloquentia (Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua Venice 1525). The first grammar of Slovene language was written in 1584 by Adam Bohorič.

Grammars of non-European languages began to be compiled for the purposes of evangelization and Bible translation from the 16th century onward, such as Grammatica o Arte de la Lengua General de los Indios de los Reynos del Perú (1560), and a Quechua grammar by Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás.

In 1643 there appeared Ivan Uzhevych's Grammatica sclavonica and, in 1762, the Short Introduction to English Grammar of Robert Lowth was also published. The Grammatisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart, a High German grammar in five volumes by Johann Christoph Adelung, appeared as early as 1774.

From the latter part of the 18th century, grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Serbian grammar by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić arrived in 1814, while the Deutsche Grammatik of the Brothers Grimm was first published in 1818. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp, the starting point of modern comparative linguistics, came out in 1833.

Development of grammars

Main articles: Historical linguistics and History of English grammars

Grammars evolve through usage and also due to separations of the human population. With the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend to appear also. Formal grammars are codifications of usage that are developed by repeated documentation over time, and by observation as well. As the rules become established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often creates a discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted, over time, as being correct. Linguists tend to view prescriptive grammars as having little justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes, although style guides may give useful advice about standard language employment, based on descriptions of usage in contemporary writings of the same language. Linguistic prescriptions also form part of the explanation for variation in speech, particularly variation in the speech of an individual speaker (an explanation, for example, for why some people say "I didn't do nothing", some say "I didn't do anything", and some say one or the other depending on social context).

The formal study of grammar is an important part of education for children from a young age through advanced learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense most linguists use the term, particularly as they are often prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs) are more common in the modern day. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example, naturalistic Interlingua, schematic Esperanto, and the highly logic-compatible artificial language Lojban). Each of these languages has its own grammar.

Syntax refers to linguistic structure above the word level (e.g. how sentences are formed)—though without taking into account intonation, which is the domain of phonology. Morphology, by contrast, refers to structure at and below the word level (e.g. how compound words are formed), but above the level of individual sounds, which, like intonation, are in the domain of phonology. No clear line can be drawn, however, between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax to convey information that is encoded via inflection in synthetic languages. In other words, word order is not significant and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language, whereas morphology is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. Chinese and Afrikaans, for example, are highly analytic, and meaning is therefore very context-dependent. (Both do have some inflections, and have had more in the past; thus, they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time.) Latin, which is highly synthetic, uses affixes and inflections to convey the same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite (though not completely) self-contained, an intelligible Latin sentence can be made from elements that are placed in a largely arbitrary order. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax, while Chinese has the opposite.

Grammar frameworks

Main article: Grammar framework

Various "grammar frameworks" have been developed in theoretical linguistics since the mid-20th century, in particular under the influence of the idea of a "universal grammar" in the United States. Of these, the main divisions are:

• Transformational grammar (TG)
• Systemic functional grammar (SFG)
• Principles and Parameters Theory (P&P)
• Lexical-functional Grammar (LFG)
• Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG)
• Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)
• Dependency grammars (DG)
• Role and reference grammar (RRG)

Education

Further information: Orthography

Prescriptive grammar is taught in primary school (elementary school). The term "grammar school" historically refers to a school teaching Latin grammar to future Roman citizens, orators, and, later, Catholic priests. In its earliest form, "grammar school" referred to a school that taught students to read, scan, interpret, and declaim Greek and Latin poets (including Homer, Virgil, Euripides, Ennius, and others). These should not be confused with the related, albeit distinct, modern British grammar schools.

A standard language is a particular dialect of a language that is promoted above other dialects in writing, education, and broadly speaking in the public sphere; it contrasts with vernacular dialects, which may be the objects of study in descriptive grammar but which are rarely taught prescriptively. The standardized "first language" taught in primary education may be subject to political controversy, because it establishes a standard defining nationality or ethnicity.

Recently, efforts have begun to update grammar instruction in primary and secondary education. The primary focus has been to prevent the use of outdated prescriptive rules in favor of more accurate descriptive ones and to change perceptions about relative "correctness" of standard forms in comparison to non standard dialects.

The pre-eminence of Parisian French has reigned largely unchallenged throughout the history of modern French literature. Standard Italian is not based on the speech of the capital, Rome, but on the speech of Florence because of the influence Florentines had on early Italian literature. Similarly, standard Spanish is not based on the speech of Madrid, but on the one of educated speakers from more northerly areas like Castile and León. In Argentina and Uruguay the Spanish standard is based on the local dialects of Buenos Aires and Montevideo (Rioplatense Spanish). Portuguese has for now two official written standards, respectively Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese, but in a short term it will have a unified orthography.

The Serbian language is divided in a similar way; Serbia and the Republika Srpska use their own separate standards. The existence of a third standard is a matter of controversy, some consider Montenegrin as a separate language, and some think it's merely another variety of Serbian.

Norwegian has two standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk, the choice between which is subject to controversy: Each Norwegian municipality can declare one of the two its official language, or it can remain "language neutral". Nynorsk is endorsed by a minority of 27 percent of the municipalities. The main language used in primary schools normally follows the official language of its municipality, and is decided by referendum within the local school district. Standard German emerged from the standardized chancellery use of High German in the 16th and 17th centuries. Until about 1800, it was almost entirely a written language, but now it is so widely spoken that most of the former German dialects are nearly extinct.

Standard Chinese has official status as the standard spoken form of the Chinese language in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC) and the Republic of Singapore. Pronunciation of Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese, while grammar and syntax are based on modern vernacular written Chinese. Modern Standard Arabic is directly based on Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an. The Hindustani language has two standards, Hindi and Urdu.

In the United States, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar designated March 4 as National Grammar Day in 2008.

See also

• Category:Grammars of specific languages
• Ambiguous grammar
• Government and binding
• Harmonic Grammar
• Higher order grammar
• Grammeme
• Linguistic typology
• List of linguists
• Paragrammatism
• Syntax
• Universal grammar
• Usage

Notes and references

• American Academic Press, The (ed.). William Strunk, Jr., et al. The Classics of Style: The Fundamentals of Language Style From Our American Craftsmen. Cleveland: The American Academic Press, 2006. ISBN 0-9787282-0-3.
• Rundle, Bede. Grammar in Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-824612-9

Allerton, D. J. (1989). "Language as Form and Pattern: Grammar and its Categories". In Collinge, N.E. (ed.). An Encyclopedia of Language. London:NewYork: Routledge.

.: Newmeyer, Frederick J. (1998). Language Form and Language Function (PDF). Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

Nichols, Johanna (1992). Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-58057-1.

Nichols, Johanna (1984). "Functional Theories of Grammar". Annual Review of Anthropology. 13: 97–117. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.13.100184.000525.

Olson, David R. (1996). "Language and Literacy: what writing does to Language and Mind". Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 16: 3–13. doi:10.1017/S0267190500001392. S2CID 145677801.

Payne, Thomas Edward (1997). Describing morphosyntax: a guide for field linguists. Cambridge University Press. pp. 238–241. ISBN 9780521588058.

Trask, Robert Lawrence (1999). Language: The Basics (2nd ed.). Psychology Press.

Trask, Robert Lawrence (2007). Stockwell, Peter (ed.). Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts (2nd ed.). Routledge.

External links

• Archibald Henry Sayce (1911). "Grammar" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Category:Fiction Category:Style (fiction)

Sources

French, Brigittine M. (2008). "Guatemala: Essentialisms and Cultural Politics". In Poole, Deborah (ed.). A Companion to Latin American Anthropology. p. 133. The innovative work of Casaús Arzú (1992, 1998) uncovers the importance of whiteness in elite conceptions of race and identity among the Guatemalan ruling class. In Guatemala. Linaje y racismo (1992), Casaús Arzú meticulously documents the kinship structure and marriage alliances of the Guatemalan oligarchy from the colonial era (1524) through the late 20th century. Her historical analysis is complemented by the dual project of sociologically and ethnographically investigating how elite families conceive of collective identity and race. Casaús Arzú cogently argues that the oligarchy is ultimately a mestizo (mixed) group with an ethnocentric, ladino (non-Indian) worldview that is both elitist and endogamous in its family structure. Despite the empirical evidence of racial/ethnic "mixing," members of the oligarchy overwhelming consider themselves white, that is to say without any mixing of indigenous blood (1992:21).

LaRosa, Michael (1992–1993). "Religion in a Changing Latin America: A Review". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. 34 (4): 245–255. doi:10.2307/165811. JSTOR 165811. From the earliest days of the Iberian conquest of America, the Catholic Church has been a controversial institution, and the recent research - thankfully - has moved far beyond the "black legend" vs. "white legend" approach which viewed the church as either evil and exploitative or benevolent and beneficial.

Gledhill, John (1996). "Review: From "Others" to Actors: New Perspectives on Popular Political Cultures and National State Formation in Latin America". American Anthropologist, New Series. 98 (3): 630–633. doi:10.1525/aa.1996.98.3.02a00210. The methods and consequences of incorporating thousands of native peoples into colonial Spanish missions in western North America remain significant, controversial, and highly charged research issues. For more than a century, scholars have passionately debated variations of the "Black Legend" or the "White Legend," either vilifying Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries as brutal and heartless in their treatment of Indian neophytes or ennobling them for their personal sacrifices in bringing Christianity, new methods of agriculture, and Western material culture to native peoples. {{cite journal}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 205 (help)

Díaz, María Elena (2004). "Beyond Tannenbaum". Law and History Review. 22 (2): 371–376. doi:10.2307/4141650. JSTOR 4141650. S2CID 232394988. The infamous image of Spain and the Iberian tradition had an even longer history in the Black Legend of Spanish Conquest and colonization. Although the Spanish friar Bartolomé de Las Casas' enunciation of Spanish atrocities against the Native American population fueled it, the Black Legend took its dark "legendary" character in the hands of Dutch and British Protestant writers in the sixteenth century. In this early version of the legend, Spaniards were barbarian Catholic zealots and unscrupulous fortune seekers driven to exploit Native Americans for immediate profit and gold. The Black Legend was countered in Spanish (and Spanish-American) historiography with what became known as the "white" legend of Spain's humanitarian and civilizing colonial institutions. Tannenbaum effectively brought that ideological debate to bear on the sphere of comparative slavery. His intervention consisted of a double operation whereby he displaced the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty, mistreatment and barbarity into the Anglo-American sphere of slavery while turning the Spanish record of enslavement and colonization into a positive, humanitarian and civilized one.

Vigil, Ralph H. (1994). "Review: Inequality and Ideology in Borderlands Historiography". Latin American Research Review. 29 (1): 155–171. relations. The counterpart of the White Legend, which emphasizes Spain's civilizing mission and the humanitarian aspects of its colonial policy, is the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty and injustice during the conquest and exploitation of the Native American civilizations

Hillgarth, J. N. (1985). "Spanish Historiography and Iberian Reality". History and Theory. 24 (1): 23–43. doi:10.2307/2504941. JSTOR 2504941.

Rabasa, José (1993). "Aesthetics of Colonial Violence: The Massacre of Acoma in Gaspar de Villagrá's "Historia de la Nueva México"". College Literature. 20 (3): 96–114. Bartolomé de Las Casas's Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias [Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies] (1552) is generally considered the originator of a corpus of texts and images that have exposed and denounced the atrocities committed by the Spaniards in the New World (see Carbia). The term Black Legend betrays a position that judges Las Casas's denunciations as exaggerations that ultimately fed into the hispanophobia of such protestant pamphleteers as Théodore de Bry and sons, who included a set of engravings in their 1593 Latin edition of the Brevíssima.8 To counteract the Black Legend, apologists of the conquest have underscored the sense of justice and evangelical mission of Spain's imperial project. Representative of this position, also dating back to the sixteenth century, are Juan Gin?s de Sep?lveda's treatise on the just causes of waging war against the Indians, the Democrates alter (ca. 1547), and his panegyric, the Hechos de los espa {{cite journal}}: Text "noles en el Nuevo Mundo y Mexico [The Deeds of the Spaniards in the New World and Mexico] (1562). The justification of wars in the New World in both historical and epic texts depends on the representation of Indians as indomitable barbarians who leave no alternative but war. Nowhere is the Manichean colonial order, which Frantz Fanon analysed in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, more clearly manifest than in colonial epics.9 Epics may draw motifs (noble savages versus greedy Spaniards, for instance) from the Black Legend to condemn the behavior of individuals who have deviated from the colonial legal order (that is, the interests of the Crown); but in the end the true Christian knight must prevail over the gangster-like conquistador and the barbarian Indian. ... Thus, Villagrá's poem exemplifies an aesthetic of colonial violence that partakes of an ideology that justifies war against Indians, but whose force of representation resides in the use of grotesque images that rob indigenous peoples of all dignity even in death. Though the epigraph from Homer provides a distant measurement of the span of death by hanging, he stops short of fixing his gaze on the distorted faces of the hanged women. On the other hand, Rigoberta Menchú's sustained description of her brother's tortured body arrests the characteristic detached view of epic representations of violence. I have not cited Mench?'s passage to avoid the objectivism that would tend to make us forget the fact of her brother's suffering or mitigate the pain expressed by Rigoberta over having had to witness the "pelicula negra."15 Villagrá's ideological justification of the massacre is clearly an instance of the White Legend. But we must now underscore that the White Legend does not counter the representation of atrocities committed by Spaniards (that feed into the Black Legend) with colonial idylls, but rather with grotesque forms of denigrating the "vanquished." The sentimental aesthetic of Escalona, Las Casas, and De Bry is countered by Villagr?'s faces of death. Between Black and White Legends what changes are not the facts but the aesthetic of colonial vio lence. Everyone agrees that Acoma was destroyed. Villagr?'s difference would reside in the poetic process that "civilizes" the "savagery" of the massacre, its "total" destructive furor. ... The ethics and aesthetic of the Black Legend are limited responses to colonialist discourses precisely in so far as their inversion of the Manichean binary does not provide an alternative view of indigenous culture. Las Casas's Amerindian "noble savage," as depicted in the Brevtssima (as well as in the illustrations of De Bry) remains within the colonial system of representation, rather than elaborating new forms of understanding Amerindian societies and cultures. Las Casas, however, overcomes this limitation in his Apologética historia sumaria [Apologetic summary history] (1559) where he transvalues Amerindian cultures (for example, anthropophagy and sacrifice are instances of religiosity and value of human life among Amerindians) and uses the "noble savage" figure within Utopian discourse that makes manifest the semantic field underlying the opposition between "civili zation" and "savagery"." ignored (help)

Paul J. Hauben (1977). "White Legend against Black: Nationalism and Enlightenment in a Spanish Context". The Americas. 34 (1): 1–19. doi:10.2307/980809. JSTOR 980809. Pandemics for the moment aside, the Spanish-Indian syndrome doubtless would have had certain retrograde consequences from sheer cultural collision in the anthropological sense, while from the early days through the century we shall turn to (and beyond), oppressive labor conditions in mine and field clearly contributed to the gravity of the Indians' situation. Thus one can sympathize with Benjamin Keen's recent statement that "the so-called Black Legend is substantially accurate,if stripped of its rhetoric and emotional coloration, and with due regard for its failures to notice less dramatic forms of Spanish exploitation of the Indians . . . [and] in no way implies superior practices by other imperialisms." Across the centuries many Spaniards and Hispanophiles have in fact rejected criticisms of the Spanish colonial record precisely because "other imperialisms" were ignored by Black Legend advocates, who often came from these lands. However, Jean Sarrailh has shown that some contemporary awareness of this kind of hypocrisy existed during the Enlightenment among non-Spaniards ... Much like the French Revolution and the American Civil War the Spanish colonial record has been a subject of impassioned partisanship. Recently Juan Comas has analyzed the continuing distortion and exaggeration regarding the demographic issue by supporters of black and white legend alike.4 Of the century chiefly considered here John H. Elliott has remarked: "The eighteenth century debate was conducted in terms which suggest that the participants were more concerned to confirm and defend their personal prejudices about the nature of man and society than to obtain a careful historical perspective . .. ."5 For many the history of Spanish administration and practices in the Americas was subsumed in a debate of greater magnitude over the "morality" of Spanish history itself.6 If Las Casas had set the stage for the Amerindian argument an array of Protestant pamphleteers had soon added a European component to the Black Legend. ... Perhaps nothing in the broadest sense of international and cultural impact gave Spain a better "image" than her expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767.9 As the chronology of the literature will show, the polemics over her colonial-and general historical--record did not abate, however; but during the second half of Charles' administration Spaniards lept aggressively to its defence. Some, like Forner, seem to have been spontaneous apologists, animated by renewed vigor and passion. But others were virtually commissioned by the reforming regime to produce patriotic analyses of Spain in history. Perhaps the most important came from the pen of a Catalan Jesuit, living in Italian exile, whose work has recently been assessed as "initiating the White Legend." {{cite journal}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 282 (help)